A letter

A letter to my 13 month old daughter.
April 28, 2015 Dear Cecily, I want to write you a letter to tell you how much I love you and try somehow to capture these fleeting days and weeks before they are gone like sand running through my fingers. Now that you are over a year old and the dates and holidays we are living through are not your firsts anymore, I find my mind drawn back with some frequency to what life was like a year ago. It is hard for me to realize that memories of even those times are already fading.

Patriot's Day 2015.

Hi Paul Revere.

You have become a curious little person and like exploring things and places that are unfamiliar to you. You seem intent on mastering certain tasks, like putting the plastic coins into the slot. You don’t have many intelligible words yet, but it seems like every day we hear a new combination of sounds from you. You are social and like interacting with other people, often even strangers. You have started giving precious hugs, which melt my and your dad’s hearts. There is nothing sweeter than a hug from you. Leaving you with the babysitter often means that I endure frantic inconsolable crying on my way out, but I am always assured that you calm down quickly and are perfectly content for the rest of the time. You are a toddler now, preferring to walk instead of crawl. You are not completely steady yet but every day I see improvement. You are a good eater, but have started shaking your head to certain things and refusing even to try them. You take either two naps or one depending on the day.

Spring has finally arrived after one of the longest, and definitely the snowiest, winter of my life. Today we met Bex and Saul at Whole Foods for dinner and afterwards you and I walked some in the park by the river across the street from Whole Foods. You really wanted to pet the Canada Geese, and you liked picking up brown leaves and trying to steal my sunglasses. You totally messed up my hair when I put you on my shoulders to go back to the car. You pointed at the birds in the sky and I finally showed you the real moon, instead of all the pictures of the moon in the books we read. I love spending time with you and watching you learn things about the world around you. I love being your mother. Every day is an adventure with you. You have even started helping with small chores such as “go get your shoes” and “put these stamps back in the box.”

We visited Buckman's Tavern last weekend. This is where the Lexington Militia waited from about midnight until 4:30 am when the British Regulars showed up on their march to Concord. It is directly across from the Lexington Green where the fighting took place.

The painting on the wall is of the fighting that day.

I was thinking on the drive home today how every single human, those people playing softball over there, the drivers in the other cars, were also once tiny babies like you were a year ago. They all grew up and so will you. Someday I will look back and wish I could spend a few minutes with my one year old again, or hold my precious baby in my arms. That is not the way life works, though. We take the good with the bad every day on earth that we get and hopefully we are present, truly present when the good moments happen. That is the stuff life is made of.

I love you my sweet Cecily. ***

By the way, I owe you an ice cream cone, Candy!

Spring IS here!

Friends, neighbors, countrymen: 

I am pleased to announce that the last of our snow melted on April 11th and while a few stubborn patches hang out in parking lots around town, they cannot last for long. The weather has been getting into the 60s! I went outside the other day and actually felt warm! I couldn't believe it. 

I think that may have been the longest winter of my life. I don't really know if I am any stronger for it, but I survived. I lived to tell the tale. I feel almost giddy sometimes when I think about all the months of warm weather that await us, all the parks we can visit, the fact that I can go outside without a jacket. You heard me: without a jacket!!

Cecily is a little toddler. Meaning that she toddles. She will take a few steps before having to regroup but I think her days of having to be carried everywhere are quickly coming to an end. Just like every milestone, it is a wonderful thing and a little bittersweet. 

I realize that 99% of the pictures I have of her are in her high chair. And, yes, that may just be a prefold diaper that she is using as a bib. It seemed like the right thing to do.

We are thinking about putting wallpaper on one of the walls in our front room and maybe a wall in our bedroom. I have assembled quite the wallpaper sample collection. I think I have narrowed it down to three favorites. If you guess which ones, I will buy you an ice cream cone.

Someday I might have hair, guys.

Spring is here?

There's lots of things I could post about. Let's start with the fact that spring is officially here and has been for a week and there is (only) about 6 inches of snow in our yard left. I am going to call that a good thing. The not good thing is the months' worth of poopcicles that need to be cleaned up as the icebergs recede.

I could also post about how good homemade maple syrup tastes... And how it might even be worth the tank of propane that it takes to boil it down.

But let's just post a few pictures instead.

Took a walk with a friend yesterday. It feels sooooo good to get outside after a long winter of hibernation. Even though there is still snow on the ground and it is still rather chilly. 

 Ephraim and family visited a couple weeks ago and we had a great time with them. They coped nicely with five people crammed into one bedroom... 

We went to the Museum of Science together and Cecily decided to study the elements. 

Guys, come here! I need to show you something. 

 Oh yes, this is quite interesting...

It suits her. Little cutie. 

3.14.15 Pi Day!!

Cecily's first birthday coincided with the Pi Day of the century. I didn't realize this was the case until a few days ago. Just like I didn't realize that she was actually born on pi day until a while after the actual event. I had other things on my mind, you know? Since she is not old enough to know if she prefers cake over pie, I decided that a new tradition in our family is having pies on pi birthday. This is a major change in attitude for me as I have always avoided making pie crusts on the basis that they are difficult, which is not a reason in and of itself, but also that I almost always avoid eating pie crusts when I eat pie because I prefer the filling. The pie crust is just extraneous. Not good enough to justify eating it instead of another piece of crustless pumpkin pie, for instance. However, this year was the year to overcome my passive aggressive relationship with pie crust and dig right in. 

"I woke up from my nap and there were a million people in my house! What is going on?!"

I dove in and it was a horrible learning experience. The first set of crusts came out almost inedible and also very ugly. The second came out much more edible but very ugly. The good news is that Cecily didn't seem to care that the crust was chewy instead of flaky and it shrank into the pie plate when I prebaked it so the filling overflowed over the edge of the crust and the fluting disappeared completely. Butter is a wonderful thing, but I am thinking next year when I try pie crusts again, I might just have to try lard. 

I am done talking about pie crusts. I would like to talk about this last year I have had. It has been an amazing year. The first thought that comes to mind is "thank goodness I survived." The second thought that came to mind is "thank goodness she survived." I can't really summarize effectively the first year of motherhood. Alex and I were talking about some of our fond memories of the past year and especially those early days. Alex remembers being up with Cecily in the middle of the night before she knew what sleep was. Not that he was necessarily having a lot of fun bouncing a crying baby for hours on end, but he remembers it fondly. I fondly remember sleeping while he was up with the baby. 

Nothing can prepare you for those first few weeks, just like nothing can prepare you for labor. But, just like labor, where your body knows what to do and it is going to happen no matter what you say or do or think, somehow you manage to make it through those first few weeks. I have to say, I have so so many sweet memories of my sweet, tiny little baby. It was such a miracle to me and such a blessing. 

Moving with a 10 week old was hard. Perhaps the hardest thing I have done. Thinking about the moment when I drove away from my house in Urbana, sobbing, with Alex in front of me with the moving van and Cecily and the dogs in the car with me, still brings me to tears. I remember too the day we closed. We left Philadelphia at 5 am so we would have a chance to see our house before the closing and of course traveling with an infant takes time and we also didn't take into account the fact that the moving van wouldn't fit underneath all of the cute little bridges on CT-15. We didn't end up seeing our home before closing (I had never seen it in person) and Alex showed up 1/2 hour late for the closing. We left the attorney's office just in time to hit rush hour and getting stuck in the same stupid roundabout in Cambridge for the second time made me wonder "why exactly am I doing this?" Then I showed up at our house and couldn't muster a bit of excitement for it and sat in the rocking chair holding Cecily, cold but too tired to find a blanket, while two great guys in our new ward moved all our stuff in. I think I probably didn't even tell them thank you. I should do that. 

Things are better now. I know my way around. I have some friends. And Cecily. Oh my goodness. What an amazing miracle it is to see a helpless infant transform before your very eyes to someone that can crawl, eat, sleep through the night (!), point at things, say a few words, hoard magnets, want very specific things, and just be an amazing little human... how can I describe that? Let's not sugar coat the fact that sometimes I really, really miss those days of being able to decide I want to go to the store and then go to the store without having to plan to do it at the exact right time to coincide with nap time and lunch time and bring a huge bag of stuff along and then not take too long because she is getting bored and needs to get back so I have time to give her a snack before her nap... I do miss the freedom. But, oh, it is amazing to be a mother. Such a miraculous process. And to feel love for this little person that I didn't know was possible to feel... While I miss some things about life before motherhood, I can't say that I have ever regretted it. 

Happy 1st birthday, my dear sweet little Cecily. You are the one that made me a mommy. I look forward to so many more years of growing up together, sweet moments together, learning how to be a family together. I know there will be hard times too, and I know we will get through them together and God will help us to do it. 

more snow

 The snow, it just doesn't stop...

Looking out the front window. Good thing we don't have goats because they would have walked over the fences by now.

We were able to visit Philadelphia during Alex's recent vacation. We had a great time visiting family and seeing some sights. We went to the Eastern State Penitentiary which was cool... and creepy... and cold. 

Cecily turned 11 months old yesterday. She is generally very happy, is getting close to standing and walking by herself every day, and makes all sorts of fun sounds. Did I mention she likes chocolate?

What we've been up to... and Snowmaggedon 2015

Hi. I like looking in the mirror. I still prefer scooting over trying to crawl. I like blueberries, bananas, chocolate, goat cheese and pickles. Tonight I discovered how fun it is to smear food in my hair and watch mom and dad's reaction. 

 Last Saturday we went to Taza, a local factory that makes Mexican style stone ground chocolate. Cecily wasn't thrilled about having a hair net on.

 I don't think she really needs one... Not having much hair and all...

 We also went to the Harvard Natural History museum which was pretty neat.

 We had a big snowstorm yesterday. A foot of snow fell overnight and then another foot during the day.

 Today we ventured out with marshmallow baby. 

Yes, she is wearing socks on her hands. Not too happy about that. 

Pets and life of the mom of a 10 month old

Here in Medford you cannot have chickens. Which is a shame because we bought a chicken coop from Craigslist the first week we moved in and which seems silly in retrospect. But now I have a purpose and mission in life and I have already started hounding the animal control officer :)

I do have a few pets besides Lucy, Lola, and Ruben. They live in the basement. They eat my scraps along with wet newspaper. They are slimy. They make dirt. Are you jealous yet? They are red wiggler worms, and they also make babies. I am thinking of expanding from one plastic bin to two. I gave some baby worms as pets to the daughter of my visiting teacher in a glass jar with a bit of lettuce for them to eat. I don't think the mom was thrilled (but the girl was) and I don't think the worms survived long.

College books and stuffed animals no longer!!

Black gold is what they call this (the dirt part, not the soaked phone book).

***

What does my life look like as a mom of an almost 10 month old?
I know every 10 month old is not the same, but this is what I have found it is like to be the mom of a 10 month old:
 - Her schedule is pretty set. Wakes up at 6 am, nurses, eats breakfast, naps from 9-10, eats a snack, eats lunch at noonish, nap from 1-2ish, wakes up, has a snack, we might go somewhere, dinner at 6, get ready for bed which is at 7:00-7:30. Putting her down is so easy now. Like butter on warm bread, as they say.
 - She is curious about everything she can or cannot get her hands on.
 - She is still not crawling but a pretty efficient scooter and can get halfway to the bathroom in the time it takes me to make a quick visit.
 - She is very interested in where I am and generally wants to be there, too. Me going to the bathroom is sometimes enough to cause much sadness. Separation anxiety?
 - It is hard to get anything done. She may play by herself for five minutes or so but after that scoots over to where I am and expects to be picked up/read to, etc. If I ignore or delay that request, crying often ensues. I have found that if I want to prepare food beyond just heating it up, it has to happen when she is asleep. I am starting to experiment with letting her be frustrated a little bit. Sometimes she will cry some and then be ok staying on the floor. Sometimes she will not be ok staying on the floor. It is a work in progress.
 - It can be hard to plan when and how to get out of the house. The best time period we have is after her afternoon nap/snack when we actually have a couple hours without having to rush home to get to the next nap.
 - Some days I have help from another adult (Alex) but most days I don't. We are happy just to see him awake for a few minutes some days.
 - It has been hard to go to evening church events because I either am home by myself or the rare nights that Alex is home and actually could stay with the baby, I feel that I should spend the time with him.

Most days I am content and grateful. I won't say that I don't miss the freedom I had before having a child, because I do. A 10 month old is so much easier than a newborn in so many ways, but it can actually be harder to get out of the house now that she can't fall asleep just anywhere. 9 am church is proving to be hard because the early nap gets delayed or thrown out the window.

I am going to be watching a 15 month old starting this week for 1-2 afternoons per week as part of a babysitting swap. It will be interesting to see what the dynamic is between the two and if it will actually be easier to step away for a few minutes if they are at the point of entertaining each other.

There are so many special, wonderful, perfect moments of the day. When I am mindful and open to my daughter and whatever is going on, trying to bring kindness and compassion for myself and for Cecily to our interactions, and non judgmental of whatever situation I find myself in, there is so so much to be grateful for. So many moments of watching my daughter grow before my eyes, seeing her laugh and smile, and just enjoying the energy and experience of a little girl. It really is wonderful.